the Nation to break down at once the carved work of the whole Fabrick of the Reformation as with Axes and Hammers in that insolent effrontry and indignity against Heaven in making void the National and Solemn League and Covenants which the Church and State both in their Representatives and Members did most solemnly Swear and Subscrive for themselves and Posterity which for the matter of them perpetually obliging for the manner so Religiously engaged into and for their ends so Glorious no power on Earth can dispense with disannull or disable which not only the Lord from Heaven did ratify by the Conversion of many Thousands and vouchsafing his presence gracious in Ordinances and propitious in Providences at the subscriving of them But in this Land at the Inauguration of the King Charles 2. being the condition upon which he was admitted to the Government the latter of these Covenants was Ratified and Established as the great fundamental Law of the Kingdom whereon all the Rights and Priviledges either of King or People are principally bottomed and secured and as the very Magna Charta of our Reformation Yet this not only they did break in Heaven-daring boldness but to flatter the King in making way for Prelacy Tyranny and Popery and to indulge the licentiousness of some debauched Nobles who could not endure the Yoke of Christs Government according to his Institutions there Covenanted to be preserved they enacted and declared it should have no Obligation or binding Force any farther and that none should henceforth require the renewing of it Carol. 2. Parl. 1. Sess. 1. Act. 7. And afterwards that the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant were in themselves Unlawful Oaths and therefore annulled all Acts and Constitutions Ecclesiastical or Civil approving them Parl. 1. Sess. 2. Act. 2. And not only so but in contempt of Heaven they caused burn them by the hand of the Hangman For adhering unto these Sacred Inviolable and Indispensible Engagements the sufferings of Presbyterians have in a great measure been stated since that time The next wicked project was to remove out of the way all who were eminent Instruments in promoting that work of Reformation now about to be razed and whom they feared would obstruct their Antichristian and Tyrannical designs both in the State and in the Church Accordingly the Noble Marquess of Argyle was beheaded for no other alledged cause but for his complyance with the English when they had made a Conquest of our Land Wherein also the Judges that condemned him were Socii Criminis And afterwards the Lord Wariston upon the same pretence And for the same pretended cause many other Gentlemen above 800 were Arbitrarly and Exorbitantly fined some under divers stiles twice over Such of the Ministry also as had been most faithful servent for the interests of their Master and of his Church were cruelly and most illegally removed some by Death as famous Mr. Guthrie for asserting the Kingly Prerogative of Christ in opposition to the Erastian Supremacy encroaching thereupon others by Banishment for giving faithful warning and protesting against the defection of that time thereby only contraveening a wicked Proclamation discharging them to speak against the Proceedings of the State others Indicta causa without access to give in their defences or to get so much as an extract of their sentence After they had thus prepared their way by the very first Act of the second Sess of the first Parl. anno 1662. They reestablished and redintegrated their Dagon of Episcopal Prelacy with all its inseparably concomitant retinue of Pride Perjury Simony Sacriledge and intollerable Usurpations and Corruptions And wreathed again about our Neck that Yoke which neither our Fathers who wrestled much against it nor we were nor ever shall be able to bear which as it is insupportable to and hated of all the Godly and desirable to none but dissolute debauched Persons who cannot endure Christs discipline impartially exercised and do find incouragement under the wings of Prelacy being in its original both the Mother and Daughter Root and Off-spring Cause and Effect of Popery a device which advanced the Man of Sin to his hight in the World and the only remaining support of his hopes of recovering these Kingdoms by Christs conquest rescued from his Tyranny in its nature evidently eversive of the very nature of Gospel Church Government in its ends only adapted to bring the Church into a slavish dependence on subordination to an usurped Supremacy of the Magistrate which is a change only of the Pope not of the Popedom And in its effects alwayes found to be most deplorably destructive to the purity and power of Religion and peace of its sincere profession and that which hath introduced and encouraged Impiety Error Schism and Persecution in these Lands So by all the sober and judicious that have known the Case of this Church and Kingdom it hath been acknowledged to be the source and spring of all our Sorrows and Grievances under which we have groaned these 28 Years This abjured Prelacy as it was introduced by manifest Perjury and Persidy so it was at first erected and hitherto advanced and supported on such a Foundation as might bear out and justify the Contrivers and Promoters of it as well in all attemprs to set up Popery it self the Act establishing it Declaring the disposal of the Government of the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty as an inherent Right of the Crown by vertue of his Royal Prerogative and Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastick An usurpation upon the Kingdom of Christ equivalent to any that ever the Papacy it self durst aspire unto over the Government of the Church The first effect whereof was by another Act 1 Sess. 2 Parl. Carol. 2. the restoring the old exploded bondage of Parronages another old Relict of Popish Slavery depriving the Church of the freedom of Calling and Choosing their own Pastors And dispossessing all the Ministers who entered since the Year 1640. of their Churches and Benefices possessed without the presentations of Patrons After which by the instigation of the Prelates the Council passed an Act October 1662 whereby above 300 Ministers were violently put out of their Charges and their Congregations laid desolate without all Legal Procedure without either Accusation or Citation Conviction or Sentence or a hearing allowed to them And therefore for simple Nonconformity and refusing subjection to and taking Collations from the Prelates the rest of the Ministers in great numbers were with cruelty more beseeming Turks thrust from their Labours and banished with a nice and strange confinement 20. Miles from their own Parish Church Six Miles from a Cathedral and three Miles from a Burgh In whose room succeded a swarm of Ignorant and Scandalous Apostates the Prelates and their Mercenary Substitutes the Curats against whom such Charges might alwayes have been adduced and to this day such Accusations are in readiness to be produced to any competent ludicatories that
productive of Prelacy again Which in the Lords strength We and many Thousands do intend never to submit to tho for our Recusancy we should suffer the greatest persecution from Men. We are for the Restauration and Re-establishment of this Churches Ancient Covenanted Reformation in its Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God Confession of Faith Catechisms Larger and Shorter National and Solemn Covenants and Acts of General Assemblies in all its Legall Immunities Securities and Sanctions as before the Year 1650. These Different Inclinations cannot be a Rule of Government and order but of Ataxie and Confusion Nor can they be determined by a Lesbian rule unconstant and uncertain But somewhat to which all must vail and and submit and which must claim the last Appeal Tho we might with as great Confidence as others Venture the success of our Plea for Presbyterie upon the decision of a Poll and Plurality of Votes providing which could not be denied none be admitted to Vote but such as are well affected to the Government of King William and Queen Marry Yet we cannot subject the determination of that Plea to any other Rule than he Institution of CHRIST considering that either the Lord IESVS who is anointed only King and Head of his Church and is faithful in all his House must not have appointed any Government or order thereof at all which would exceedingly Reflect upon His Wisdom and Faithfullness and the Perfection of his Law or this Government which he hath appointed must not be Arbitrary and Ambulatory indifferently determinable by the will and inclinations of Men no more than others of His Institutions can be We plead for no Government and for nothing in this of Presbyterie but what we have the Lawes of CHRIST in his Word the Ancient Lawes of the Nation the Constitutions of the Church never yet repealed by any subsequent Authority Ecclesiastick and the Covenant Eengagements of all ranks in the Land of Indespensible obligation for Nor do we plead for any exercise or extent of this order further then is necessary for the purging of the Church of every Antichristian or Erastian Corruption and Invention Defection or Schism Error or Scandal in Officers or Members impartially And for the Planting of the Church with Godly able and Faithful Ministers for the Instruction conviction conversion Edification and Consolation of the Members thereof But now not only is this Government not established but even that of Prelacy is not effectually nor can be abolished while the many iniquous Laws against Presbytery and pressing submission to Prelacy are not rescinded And while our National and Solemn League Cevenants for Preserving and Promoting Reformation are so far forgotten and trampled upon that the Acts Antiquating and Discharging them to be owned are not only not Abrogated but so far yet observed that it is hardly allowed they should be publickly mentioned While also the Ecclesiastical Supremacy a feather likewise of Antichrists wing and a Blasphemous and Sacrilegious Encroachment upon Christs Prerogatives and His Kingdoms Priviledges is not revocked nor declared void whereby it stands declared by wicked Laws to be the inherent Right of the Magistrate to Order Dispose Alter or Innovate the external Government of the Church and to plant or transplant Ministers and give them Instructions to Regulate them in the Exercise of their Function which if not Abolished will not only optn a Door to the Introdnction of Prelacy or Popery again But if the Protestant Religion be never so well Established this will in process of time unhinge all possible Settlements thereof There is nothing more the Interest of the Church than to seek that this Mountain in the way of its Reformation be removed and all Acts confirming the same repealed and Indulgences following therefrom be declared to be Usurpations Another Pillar of Prelacy the constant support of it and stop to Reformation does yet continue while the burdensome Bondage of Patronages is not removed whereby the Church is Robbed of the Liberty of choosing her own Guides intrusted with her greatest concerns the Great-men have open access Implicity to impose and Prey upon and Pester the Church with Corrupt Teachers But if all these things were Rectified it is impossible the Church can ever be settled or purged or planted as long as the Episcopal Curats intruded by the Prelats Collation and Patrons Presentation contrare to the Institutions of Christ and the Constitutions of this Reformed Church without the Call and contrare to the Inclinations of the People in many places but every where the Bane of the Nation the Scandal of the Church and the cause of all our Confusions are continued in the Churches How can the Church be settled when those that unsettled it continue in the same Capacity to oppose all Righteous Settlements of Reformation How can the Church be purged when the greatest Corrupters and the most corrupted Members remain in Power Either they must be looked upon and Subject themselves as Members of the Presbyterian Church and then Discipline cannot but strike against them in such a measure of Severity as may be some way proportioned to the greatness of their Scandal their Obstinacy Impenitency and Continuance in it as long as they could and the hazard of their Leavening the whole Lump or they must be looked upon as Pure and Perfect Schismaticks seting up a distinct Church and seperate Communion within a well Constitute National Church and as such they ought to be Censured and Restrained How can the Church be planted when those Plants that the LORD never planted fill so much of His Vineyard and continue in so many Paroches either to sterve them with the hungry Husks of Ethick Homilies and Harangues of Moral Vertues instead of Gospel Holiness not knowing to Preach the Mystery of the Covenant of Grace or declare the Counsel of GOD to the Conversion of Sinners unto CHRIST or so poyson them with points of Popery Arminianisme Socinianisme Yet many of them do yet Peaceably possess the places they were intruded into and others dispossessed are reponed by Force contrare to the inclinations of the Paroch and notwithstanding their opposition in some places as for instance in Colintown and in Peebles where great Insolences were committed affronting the Magistrates and disturbing the Presbyterian Meeting which have been overlooked but the least Accession to any Opposition that was made hath been severely punished one Francis Beatie upon this account being for these many weeks kept in prison and his Petitions for Liberty ejected This hath discouraged many and opened their mouths to reflect That tho this Government be as much admited for Acts of Mercy to Rebells as the former was for Cruelty yet wherever any Presbyterian can be apprehended in any fault he must expect the rigour of Severity We do not justifie illegal Tumults nor do we approve that people should transgress their Line and Station in endeavours of Reformation when there is a Magistrate to be
unto followed Such as had not served the Enemy in destroying nor engaged by Oaths and Tests to destroy the cause now to be sought for and defended But that they should be well affected of approven Fidelity and of a sober conversation Having also declared That the cause they were called to appear for was the service of the Kings Majesty in the defence of the Nation Recoverie and preservation of the Protestant Religion and in particular the work of Reformation in Scotland in opposition to Popery Prelacy and Arbitrary Power in all its Branches and Steps until the Government of Church and State be brought to their Lustre and Integrity established in the best and purest times Upon these terms we offered to compleat two or three more Regiments if it had been accepted But before we offered to be Souldiers we had first made an offer to be Subjects And because we did not look upon our selves as Subjects to the Late King who treated us as Enemies We made therefore a voluntary Tender of our Subjection in a peculiar Petition by our selves which we purposed to have given in to the Meeting of Estates at their first sitting down We shewed it to several Honourable Members but by their Advice it was delayed until the Meeting prevented the purpose of it by Proclaiming the King and Queen The Tenor whereof here Follows TO THE MEETING of ESTATES Of the Kingdom of SCOTLAND THE NOBLEMEN BARONS and BVRGESSES Lawfully Called and Chosen now Assembled at Edinburgh for Establishing the Government Restoring and Securing the True Religion Laws and Liberties of the said Kingdom The Humble PETITION of the poor People who have Suffered Grievous Persecution for their Revolt from and disowning the Authority of James the VII Pleading for the devolving the Government upon the Prince of Orange now King of England SHEWETH THat the sad effects of the Late Arbitrary and Tyrannical Course of Government which these Nations and we in a special manner have been groaning under these years past From which to Relieve them the Most Serene and Illustrious Prince of Orange was induced by the Propitious Conduct of a very Glorious Providence to Undertake this Noble and Heroick Enterprise And for Redressing which This Honourable Convention is Called and Conveened Together with the revived hopes since His Highness Auspicious Arrival that all honnest men have begun to conceive and entertain of getting their Grievances freely Represented and Redressed The denyal whereof these several years hath been to us and many others a Grievance very grievous Have necessitate incited invited and encouraged us among others tho of the meanest Figure and lowest Interest in this great Affair Yet as persons pressed to declare and oppressed for declaring their Consciences Sentiments and Resentments of the Late abused Government to take the Boldness now to open our hearts to this Great and Honourable Meeting And with all humility as becomes to Represent to Your Honours That as we conceive we wanted not Right and Reason upon Consciencious Grounds to decline the Illegally extorted and Arbitrarly imposed acknowledgement of our Allegiance unto Iames the VII Whose Authority we could never own because of his Illegal Investiture without taking or being in Capacity to take the Oath of Coronation while addicted to Poperie contrare to the Laws of God and Man because of his Advancing the Prerogative unto an Illimited and most Despotical Absolutness which all were required to obey without Reserve And because of his Arbitrary abusing it to the undermining and overturning our Religion Laws and Liberties and intended Introduction of Poperie and Slaverie at the opened gap of the Prelatical Hierarchy Erastian Supremacy and the Late vastly extended Toleration And because we could not own it our Sufferings have been very great known to this and other Nations and we are confident will not now be condemned by any that have espoused the Cause and have been honoured to concur in the Enterprise of Rescuing these Nations from the Unsupportable Yoke of the Late Popish Domination upon the same or equivalent grounds on which we durst not own it So we prostrate ourselves yet sorrowing under the smart of our still bleeding wounds at your Honours Feet who have a Call a Capacity and we hope a good mind to cure them And offer this our Petition enforced by all the formerly felt presently seen and for the future feared Effects and Efforts of this Throne of Iniquity and the mischief thereby framed into Law and practised or projected against all Law by the Cry of the Blood of our murdered Brethren by the slavery of the banished free born Subjects of this Realm by all the miseries that many forefeited disinhereted harassed and wasted honest Families have been redacted to their Estates and Lives being at the mercy of incensed Souldiers for adhering unto the Ancient Covenanted Establishments of Religion and Liberty And by all the Arguments of Justice Necessity and Mercy that ever could conciliate Commiseration among Men of Wisdom Piety and Vertue humbly Beseeching Requesting and Craving of your H Now when GOD hath given you this opportunity to Act for His Glory the good of the Church and Nation your own Honour and the Happiness of Posterity Now when this Kingdom the Neighbouring and all other Nations of Europe have their Eyes upon you expecting you will acquit your selves like the Representatives of a free Nation in redeeming it from Slaverie otherwise ineluctable following the Noble footsteps of your Renowned Ancestors and the present Precedent and Pattern of this Honourable Convention and Parliament now sitting in England That you will proceed without any farther Procrastinations alwayes especially now Dangerous when Papists and other Malignant Enemies are openly attempting to raise a Rebellion against the State to declare the late Iniquous Government dissolved the Crown Vacant and Iames VII whom we never have and resolve with many Thousands never again to owne to have really Forfeited and rightly to be deprived of all Right and Title he could ever pretend thereunto And to provide that it may never be in the Power of any succeeding Governour for the time to come to aspire unto or arrive at such a Capacity of Tyrannizing Moreover since Anarchy and Tyranny are equally to be detested and the Nation cannot subsist without a Righteous Governour and none can have a nearer Right nor fitter Qualifications than his Illustrious Highness whom the Most High hath signally Owned and Honoured to be our deliveror from Popery end Slavery We Cry and Crave that King William now of England may be Chosen and Proclaimed King of Scotland and that the Regal Authority be devolved upon him with such necessary Provisions Limitations and Conditions of Compact as may give Iust and Legal Securities of the Peace and Purity of our Religion Stability of our Laws priviledges of Parliaments and Subjects Liberties Civil and Ecclesiastick and make our Subjection both a clear Duty and a comfortable Happiness And because Kings are but Men mortal mutable and
seem obliquely to reflect upon the Government when we complain of the ill Administrations of many Malignants in power But as they are sad Truths which cannot be denyed and tho we may be charged with Imprudence in speaking so freely what many Thousands and those of the surest Friends the Government hath do think So however we be neither Politicians nor Flatterers we think Conscience and Loyalty both doth oblige us to speak what concerns the King and Country both to hear We do not blame the King for delaying the satisfaction that his People have long waited for further than for permitting some into Trust who have abused him with misinformations of what they waited for and with counsels to delay their satisfaction Nor are we jealous of his Majesties sincere intentions to perform what he hath promised and the Estates Demanded as necessary for settling the Church securing Laws restoring Liberties and Redressing Grievances Albeit many here complained of have laboured to suggest grounds of such Iealousie We have got already so much Advantage by the success of his Heroick Expedition And so many repeated Assurances of his Royal Resolutions to fulfill his Declaration and Promises to our satisfaction none of which we can charge him with the breach of tho many of them are not yet accomplished that we should be very unworthy to Iealouse his Integrity We consider his Majestie stated in very Difficult and Dangerous Circumstances since he interposed himself in our Gap between an angry God and a sinful Provocking People Wherein he hath to do with a potent Enemy without and many undermyning Enemies about his Hand seeking to ensnare him in sin and expose him to ruine and hath in his two Kingdoms of Britain People of different Interests and Inclination whom to Govern will require great deliberation and consequently occasion delayes But we lay the blame where it should lye on the Malignants at Court Council and Parliament who are seeking to betray him and us both If some of these be exposed and their old pranks discovered and the Grievous effects of their being so much in Power hinted at We hope the Candid Reader will think it no ill service either to King or Country ERRATA Reader before thou peruse these Sheets be pleased to help these Escapes of the PRESS omitting these of less Note Page 15. Line 34. Read encouraged P. 17. 19. R. superadded by L. 25. R. equaling P. 34. Col. 1. 9. R. 21 Men and 5 Women P. 35 Col. 2. L. 11. for Douglas R. Dundass P. 36. Col. 1. L 5 for Mouat R. Mewae Col. 2. L. 20 R. Dundass and L. 26. R. Dundass P. 39. L. 36. for Orders R. Order P. 48. L. 18. R. flowing A SHORT MEMORIAL OF THE GRIEVANCES and SUFFERINGS Of the PRESBYTERIANS in SCOTLAND Since the Year 1660. Particularly of those of them called CAMERONIANS AFTER King Charles returned from his Exile the first Device which the Malignants then advanced to the highest places of Trust fell upon for overturning our Religion Laws and Liberties was to prevent and obstruct all access either to Justice or Mercy for such as they had a mind to destroy and preclude all Applications for a Redress of Grievances Hence when some faithful Ministers were drawing up a Monitory Supplication to the King congratulating his Return and minding him of his Covenant Engagements and promises to promote and preserve the work of Reformation the Committee of States then siting caused apprehend and without hearing incarcerate them for no other cause but that Supplication against which at that time there was no Law and which all Law and Reason of the World will justifie as the most innocent expedient of getting their just complaints heard and redressed and the common priviledge of all men which slavery it self cannot take away Yet as all Men and they themselves could not but see this a manifest subverting of the Subjects Liberty So in procureing a Law to approve it afterwards they made it worse and more illegal in declaring Petitions to be unlawful and seditious Carol. 2. Parl. 2. Sess. 2. Act 2. Hence no Petition or Remostrance of publick Grievances Oppressing and enslaving Church or Nation either durst be offered or could find Access or Acceptance being interdicted and also punished very severely as in the instance of the Grievances given in against Lauderdale Nor durst Prisoners tender the most innocent Supplication even for release or a more easie Confinement in any terms that seemed either to reflect on their severity or represent the illegality of their prosecutions or in the least to vindicate the cause they were suffering for which caused many afterwards to decline all petitioning and choose rather to ly under the most unsupportable bondage for fear of having it made more miserable The next succeeding Devices to undermine and overturn our Religion and Liberty were the Mischiefs framed into Law by the first Session of the first Parl Charles 2. held by the Earl of Middletoun 1661. Wherein by the very first Act thereof all the Members were involved in a Conscience Ensnaring and Enslaving Oath of Absolute and Implieite Allegiance and Supremacy without the former usual Limitations then standing unrepealed not only wronging Parliaments in their Priviledges and the Church in her Liberties but the Lord Jesus Christ in his Prerogative of Supremacy and Headship over the Church making the King a Pope and not only a Church Member as a Magistrate or Church Officer but the Supreme Architectonick Head of the Church For refusing this afterwards many Ministers and others were banished several of them made to subscribe a Bond to remove out of all his Majesties Dominions within a moneth not to return under the pain of Death And many kept in prison by the Arbittary Power of the Council beside the tenor and extent of their own wicked Act thereupon In the following Acts of that same Session of Parliament they advanced the Kings Prerogative to the highest pitch of Absoluteness and the acknowledgement of this vast and unlimited prerogative in all particulars was formed and imposed Charl 2 Parl 1. Sess. 1. Act 2 3 4 5 11. This was the foundation of all the succeeding Tyranny and source of the Nations slavery and in it self a head of sufferings to several Gentlemen and others who could not in Conscience subscribe or make that acknowledgement of such a prerogative which would manifestly have imported an approving of the first audacious and presumptuous effect and attempt of its power exerted in rescinding and annulling at one blow all the Righteous and Legal Establishments of the Covenanted Reformation and all the Acts made in favours thereof in all the Parliaments and Conventions of Estates from the year 1640. to 1650. even those that the then King Charles 1. approved owned and called They rested not here in a general or gradual unhinging of Legal Constitutions made for security of our Religion and Liberty but then took advantage of the universal silent Submission of